Once again we came
To
such a threshold, such a door received them,
They
vanished, and I waited. The grim round
Ceased
only when the festal panes grew dark
And
the last door had shot its tardy bolt.
“Too late!” I heard one murmur; and “Too late!”
The other, in unholy antiphon.
And
with dejected steps they turned away.
They
turned, and still I tracked them, till they bent
Under
the lee of a calm convent wall
Bounding a quiet street. I knew the street,
One
of those village byways strangely trapped
In
the city’s meshes, where at loudest noon
The
silence spreads like moss beneath the foot,
And
all the tumult of the town becomes
Idle
as Ocean’s fury in a shell.
Silent
at noon—but
now, at this void hour,
When
the blank sky hung over the blank streets
Clear
as a mirror held above dead lips,
Came
footfalls, and a thronging of dim shapes
About
the convent door: a suppliant line
Of
pallid figures, ghosts of happier folk,
Moving
in some gray underworld of want
On
which the sun of plenty never dawns.
And
as the nuns approached I saw the throng
Pale
emanation of that outcast hour,
Divide
like vapor when the sun breaks through
And
take the glory on its tattered edge.
For
so a brightness ran from face to face,
Faint
as a diver’s light beneath the sea
And
as a wave draws up the beach, the crowd
Drew to the nuns.
I
waited. Then those two
Strange
pilgrims of the sanctuaries of sin
Brought
from beneath their large conniving cloaks
Two
hidden baskets brimming with rich store
Of
broken viands—pasties, jellies, meats,
Crumbs
of Belshazzar’s table, evil waste
Of
that interminable nightly feast
Of
greed and surfeit, nodding face to face
O’er the picked bones of pleasure …
And
piteous hands were stretched to take the bread
Of
this strange sacrament—this manna brought
Out of the antique wilderness of sin.
Each
seized a portion, turning comforted
From
this new breaking of the elements;
And
while I watched the mystery of renewal
Whereby
the dead bones of old sins become
The
living body of the love of God,
It
seemed to me that a like change transformed
The
city’s self … a little wandering air
Ruffled
the ivy on the convent wall;
A
bird piped doubtfully; the dawn replied;
And
in that ancient gray necropolis
Somewhere
a child awoke and took the breast.
(Harper’s Magazine 105, Sept. 1902)
Moonrise
over Tyringham.
Now
the high holocaust of hours is done,
And
all the west empurpled with their death,
How
swift oblivion drinks the fallen sun,
How
little while the dusk remembereth!
Though
some there were, proud hours that marched in mail,
And
took the morning on auspicious crest,
Crying to Fortune, “Back! For I prevail!”—
Yet
now they lie disfeatured with the rest;
And
some that stole so soft on Destiny
Methought
they had surprised her to a smile;
But
these fled frozen when she turned to see,
And
moaned and muttered through my heart awhile.
But
now the day is emptied of them all,
And
night absorbs their life-blood at a draught;
And
so my life lies, as the gods let fall
An empty cup from which their lips have quaffed.
Yet
see—night is not: by translucent ways,
Up
the gray void of autumn afternoon
Steals
a mild crescent, charioted in haze,
And
all the air is merciful as June.
The
lake is a forgotten streak of day
That
trembles through the hemlocks’ darkling bars,
And
still, my heart, still some divine delay
Upon
the threshold holds the earliest stars.
O
pale equivocal hour, whose suppliant feet
Haunt
the mute reaches of the sleeping wind,
Art
thou a watcher stealing to entreat
Prayer and sepulture for thy fallen kind?
Poor
plaintive waif of a predestined race,
Their
ruin gapes for thee. Why linger here?
Go
hence in silence. Veil thine orphaned face,
Lest I should look on it and call it dear.
For
if I love thee thou wilt sooner die;
Some
sudden ruin will plunge upon thy head,
Midnight will fall from the revengeful sky
And
hurl thee down among thy shuddering dead.
Avert
thine eyes. Lapse softly from my sight,
Call
not my name, nor heed if thine I crave;
So
shalt thou sink through mitigated night
And
bathe thee in the all-effacing wave.
But
upward still thy perilous footsteps fare
Along
a high-hung heaven drenched in light,
Dilating
on a tide of crystal air
That
floods the dark hills to their utmost height.
Strange
hour, is this thy waning face that leans
Out
of mid-heaven and makes my soul its glass?
What
victory is imaged there? What means
Thy tarrying smile? Oh, veil thy lips and pass!
Nay—pause
and let me name thee! For I see,
Oh,
with what flooding ecstasy of light,
Strange
hour that wilt not loose thy hold on me,
Thou’rt
not day’s latest, but the first of night!
And
after thee the gold-foot stars come thick;
From
hand to hand they toss the flying fire,
Till
all the zenith with their dance is quick,
About the wheeling music of the Lyre.
Dread
hour that leadst the immemorial round,
With
lifted torch revealing one by one
The
thronging splendors that the day held bound,
And
how each blue abyss enshrines its sun—
Be
thou the image of a thought that fares
Forth
from itself, and flings its ray ahead,
Leaping
the barriers of ephemeral cares,
To
where our lives are but the ages’ tread,
And
let this year be, not the last of youth,
But
first—like thee!—of some new train of hours,
If
more remote from hope yet nearer truth,
And kin to the unfathomable powers.
(Century Magazine 76, July 1908)
Ogrin
the Hermit.
Vous qui nous jugez, savez-vous quel boivre nous avons bu sur la
mer?
Ogrin
the Hermit in old age set forth
This
tale to them that sought him in the extreme
Ancient
grey wood where he and silence housed:
Long
years ago, when yet my sight was keen,
My
hearing knew the word of wind in bough,
And
all the low fore-runners of the storm,
There
reached me, where I sat beneath my thatch,
A
crash as of tracked quarry in the brake,
And
storm-flecked, fugitive, with straining breasts
And
backward eyes and hands inseparable,
Tristan
and Iseult, swooning at my feet,
Sought
hiding from their hunters. Here they lay.
For
pity of their great extremity,
Their
sin abhorring, yet not them with it,
I
nourished, hid, and suffered them to build
Their
branched hut in sight of this grey cross,
That
haply, falling on their guilty sleep,
Its
shadow should part them like the blade of God,
And
they should shudder at each other’s eyes.
So
dwelt they in this solitude with me,
And
daily, Tristan forth upon the chase,
The
tender Iseult sought my door and heard
The words of holiness. Abashed she heard,
Like
one in wisdom nurtured from a child,
Yet
in whose ears an alien language dwells
Of
some far country whence the traveller brings
Magical
treasure, and still images
Of
gods forgotten, and the scent of groves
That sleep by painted rivers. As I have seen
Oft-times
returning pilgrims with the spell
Of
these lost lands upon their lids, she moved
Among
familiar truths, accustomed sights,
As
she to them were strange, not they to her.
And
often, reasoning with her, have I felt
Some
ancient lore was in her, dimly drawn
>From
springs of life beyond the four-fold stream
That
makes a silver pale to Paradise;
For
she was calm as some forsaken god
Who
knows not that his power is passed from him,
But
sees with tranced eyes rich pilgrim-trains
In
sands the desert blows about his feet.
Abhorring
first, I heard her; yet her speech
Warred
not with pity, or the contrite heart,
Or
hatred of things evil: rather seemed
The
utterance of some world where these are not,
And
the heart lives in heathen innocence
With earth’s innocuous creatures. For she said:
“Love
is not, as the shallow adage goes,
A
witch’s filter, brewed to trick the blood.
The
cup we drank of on the flying deck
Was
the blue vault of air, the round world’s lip,
Brimmed
with life’s hydromel, and pressed to ours
By myriad hands of wind and sun and sea.
For
these are all the cup-bearers of youth,
That bend above it at the board of life,
Solicitous
accomplices: there’s not
A
leaf on bough, a foam-flash on the wave,
So
brief and glancing but it serves them too;
No
scent the pale rose spends upon the night,
Nor
sky-lark’s rapture trusted to the blue,
But
these, from the remotest tides of air
Brought
in mysterious salvage, breathe and sing
In
lovers’ lips and eyes; and two that drink
Thus
onely of the strange commingled cup
Of
mortal fortune shall into their blood
Take
magic gifts. Upon each others’ hearts
They
shall surprise the heart-beat of the world,
And
feel a sense of life in things inert;
For
as love’s touch upon the yielded body
Is
a diviner’s wand, and where it falls
A
hidden treasure trembles: so their eyes,
Falling
upon the world of clod and brute,
And
cold hearts plotting evil, shall discern
The
inextinguishable flame of life
That
girdles the remotest frame of things
With influences older than the stars.”
So
spake Iseult; and thus her passion found
Far-flying
words, like birds against the sunset
That
look on lands we see not. Yet I know
It
was not any argument she found,
But
that she was, the colour that life took
About
her, that thus reasoned in her stead,
Making
her like a lifted lantern borne
Through
midnight thickets, where the flitting ray
Momently
from inscrutable darkness draws
A
myriad-veined branch, and its shy nest
Quivering with startled life: so moved Iseult.
And
all about her this deep solitude
Stirred with responsive motions. Oft I knelt
In
night-long vigil while the lovers slept
Under
their outlawed thatch, and with long prayers
Sought
to disarm the indignant heavens; but lo,
Thus
kneeling in the intertidal hour
’Twixt
dark and dawning, have mine eyes beheld
How
the old gods that hide in these hoar woods,
And
were to me but shapings of the air,
And
flit and murmur of the breathing trees,
Or
slant of moon on pools—how these stole forth,
Grown
living presences, yet not of bale,
But
innocent-eyed as fawns that come to drink,
Thronging
the threshold where the lovers lay,
In
service of the great god housed within
Who
hides in his breast, beneath his mighty plumes,
The purposes and penalties of life.
Or
in yet deeper hours, when all was still,
And
the hushed air bowed over them alone,
Such
music of the heart as lovers hear,
When
close as lips lean, lean the thoughts between—
When
the cold world, no more a lonely orb
Circling
the unimagined track of Time,
Is
like a beating heart within their hands,
A
numb bird that they warm, and feel its wings—
Such
music have I heard; and through the prayers
Wherewith
I sought to shackle their desires,
And
bring them humbled to the feet of God,
Caught
the loud quiring of the fruitful year,
The
leap of springs, the throb of loosened earth,
And the sound of all the streams that seek the sea.
So
fell it, that when pity moved their hearts,
And
those high lovers, one unto the end,
Bowed
to the sundering will, and each his way
Went
through a world that could not make them twain,
Knowing
that a great vision, passing by,
Had
swept mine eye-lids with its fringe of fire,
I,
with the wonder of it on my head,
And
with the silence of it in my heart,
Forth
to Tintagel went by secret ways,
A
long lone journey; and from them that loose
Their
spiced bales upon the wharves, and shake
Strange
silks to the sun, or covertly unbosom
Rich
hoard of pearls and amber, or let drip
Through
swarthy fingers links of sinuous gold,
Chose their most delicate treasures. Though I knew
No
touch more silken than this knotted gown,
My
hands, grown tender with the sense of her,
Discerned
the airiest tissues, light to cling
As
shower-loosed petals, veils like meadow-smoke,
Fur
soft as snow, amber like sun congealed,
Pearls
pink as may-buds in an orb of dew;
And
laden with these wonders, that to her
Were
natural as the vesture of a flower,
Fared home to lay my booty at her feet.
And
she, consenting, nor with useless words
Proving
my purpose, robed herself therein
To
meet her lawful lord; but while she thus
Prisoned
the wandering glory of her hair,
Dimmed
her bright breast with jewels, and subdued
Her
light to those dull splendours, well she knew
The
lord that I adorned her thus to meet
Was
not Tintagel’s shadowy King, but he,
That
other lord beneath whose plumy feet
The
currents of the seas of life run gold
As
from eternal sunrise; well she knew
That
when I laid my hands upon her head,
Saying,
“Fare forth forgiven,” the words I spoke
Were
the breathings of his pity, who beholds
How,
swept on his inexorable wings
Too
far beyond the planetary fires
On
the last coasts of darkness, plunged too deep
In
light ineffable, the heart amazed
Swoons
of its glory, and dropping back to earth
Craves
the dim shelter of familiar sounds,
The
rain on the roof, the noise of flocks that pass,
And the slow world waking to its daily round….
And
thus, as one who speeds a banished queen,
I
set her on my mule, and hung about
With
royal ornament she went her way;
For
meet it was that this great Queen should pass
Crowned
and forgiven from the face of Love.
(Atlantic Monthly 104, Dec 1909)
The
Comrade.
Wild
winged thing, O brought I know not whence
To
beat your life out in my life’s low cage;
You
strange familiar, nearer than my flesh
Yet
distant as a star, that were at first
A
child with me a child, yet elfin-far,
And
visibly of some unearthly breed;
Mirthfullest
mate of all my mortal games,
Yet
shedding on them some evasive gleam
Of
Latmian loneliness—O seven then
Expert
to lift the latch of our low door
And
profit by the hours when, dusked about
By
human misintelligence, our first
Weak
fledgling flights were safeliest essayed;
Divine
accomplice of those perilous-sweet
Low
moth-flights of the unadventured soul
Above
the world’s dim garden!—now we sit,
After
what stretch of years, what stretch of wings,
In
the same cage together—still as near
And
still as strange!
Only
I know at last
That
we are fellows till the last night falls,
And
that I shall not miss your comrade hands
Till
they have closed my lids, and by them set
A
taper that—who knows!—may yet shine through.
Sister,
my comrade, I have ached for you,
Sometimes,
to see you curb your pace to mine,
And
bow your Maenad crest to the dull forms
Of
human usage; I have loosed your hand
And
whispered: ‘Go! Since I am tethered here;’
And
you have turned, and breathing for reply,
‘I
too am pinioned, as you too are free,’
Have
caught me to such undreamed distances
As
the last planets see, when they look forth,
To
the sentinel pacings of the outmost stars—
Nor
these alone,
Comrade, my sister, were your gifts. More oft
Has
your impalpable wing-brush bared for me
The
heart of wonder in familiar things,
Unroofed
dull rooms, and hung above my head
The
cloudy glimpses of a vernal moon,
Or
all the autumn heaven ripe with stars.
And
you have made a secret pact with Sleep,
And
when she comes not, or her feet delay,
Toiled
in low meadows of gray asphodel
Under
a pale sky where no shadows fall,
Then,
hooded like her, to my side you steal,
And
the night grows like a great rumouring sea,
And
you a boat, and I your passenger,
And
the tide lifts us with an indrawn breath
Out,
out upon the murmurs and the scents,
Through
spray of splintered star-beams, or white rage
Of
desperate moon-drawn waters—on and on
To
some blue ocean immarcescible
That ever like a slow-swung mirror rocks
The balanced breasts of sea-birds motionless.
Yet
other nights, my sister, you have been
The
storm, and I the leaf that fled on it
Terrifically
down voids that never knew
The
pity of creation—or have felt
The
immitigable anguish of a soul
Left
last in a long-ruined world alone;
And
then your touch has drawn me back to earth,
As
in the night, upon an unknown road,
A
scent of lilac breathing from the hedge
Bespeaks
the hidden farm, the bedded cows,
And safety, and the sense of human kind …
And
I have climbed with you by hidden ways
To
meet the dews of morning, and have seen
The
shy gods like retreating shadows fade,
Or
on the thymy reaches have surprised
Old
Chiron sleeping, and have waked him not …
Yet
farther have I fared with you, and known
Love
and his sacred tremors, and the rites
Of
his most inward temple; and beyond
His
temple lights, have seen the long gray waste
Where
lonely thoughts, like creatures of the night,
Listen
and wander where a city stood.
And
creeping down by waterless defiles
Under
an iron midnight,
have I kept
My
vigil in the waste till dawn began
To
move among the ruins, and I saw
A
sapling rooted in a fissured plinth,
And
a wren’s nest in the thunder-threatening hand
Of some old god of granite in the dust …
(Atlantic Monthly 106, Dec. 1910)
Summer
Afternoon (Bodiam
Castle, Sussex).
Thou
couldst not look on me and live: so runs
The
mortal legend—thou that couldst not live
Nor
look on me (so the divine decree)!
That
sawst me in the cloud, the wave, the bough,
The
clod commoved with April, and the shapes
Lurking ’twixt lid and eye-ball in the dark.
Mocked
I thee not in every guise of life,
Hid
in girls’ eyes, a naiad in her well,
Wooed
through their laughter, and like echo fled,
Luring
thee down the primal silences
Where
the heart hushes and the flesh is dumb?
Nay,
was not I the tide that drew thee out
Relentlessly
from the detaining shore,
Forth from the home-lights and the hailing
voices,
Forth from the last faint headland’s failing
line,
Till
I enveloped thee from verge to verge
And
hid thee in the hollow of my being?
And
still, because between us hung the veil,
The
myriad-tinted veil of sense, thy feet
Refused
their rest, thy hands the gifts of life,
Thy
heart its losses, lest some lesser face
Should
blur mine image in thine upturned soul
Ere death had stamped it there. This was thy thought.
And
mine?
The
gods, they say, have all: not so!
This have they—flocks on every hill, the blue
Spirals
of incense and the amber drip
Of
lucid honey-comb on sylvan shrines,
First-chosen
weanlings, doves immaculate,
Twin-cooing
in the osier-plaited cage,
And
ivy-garlands glaucous with the dew:
Man’s
wealth, man’s servitude, but not himself!
And
so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane,
Freeze
to the marble of their images,
And,
pinnacled on man’s subserviency,
Through
the thick sacrificial haze discern
Unheeding
lives and loves, as some cold peak
Through
icy mists may enviously descry
Warm
vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun.
So
they along an immortality
Of
endless-vistaed homage strain their gaze,
If
haply some rash votary, empty-urned,
But
light of foot, with all-adventuring hand,
Break
rank, fling past the people and the priest,
Up
the last step, on to the inmost shrine,
And
there, the sacred curtain in his clutch,
Drop
dead of seeing—while the others prayed!
Yea,
this we wait for, this renews us, this
Incarnates
us, pale people of your dreams,
Who
are but what you make us, wood or stone,
Or
cold chryselephantine hung with gems,
Or
else the beating purpose of your life,
Your
sword, your clay, the note your pipe pursues,
The
face that haunts your pillow, or the light
Scarce
visible over leagues of laboring sea!
O
thus through use to reign again, to drink
The
cup of peradventure to the lees,
For
one dear instant disimmortalized
In
giving immortality!
So
dream the gods upon their listless thrones.
Yet
sometimes, when the votary appears,
With
death-affronting forehead and glad eyes,
Too
young, they rather muse, too frail thou art,
And
shall we rob some girl of saffron veil
And nuptial garland for so slight a thing?
And
so to their incurious loves return.
Not
so with thee; for some indeed there are
Who
would behold the truth and then return
To
pine among the semblances—but I
Divined
in thee the questing foot that never
Revisits
the cold hearth of yesterday
Or calls achievement home. I from afar
Beheld
thee fashioned for one hour’s high use,
Nor meant to slake oblivion drop by drop.
Long,
long hadst thou inhabited my dreams,
Surprising
me as harts surprise a pool,
Stealing
to drink at midnight; I
divined
Thee
rash to reach the heart of life, and lie
Bosom
to bosom in occasion’s arms,
And
said: Because I love thee thou shalt die!
For
immortality is not to range
Unlimited
through vast Olympian days,
Or
sit in dull dominion over time;
But
this—to drink fate’s utmost at a draught,
Nor
feel the wine grow stale upon the lip,
To
scale the summit of some soaring moment,
Nor
know the dulness of the long descent,
To
snatch the crown of life and seal it up
Secure
forever in the vaults of death!
And
this was thine: to lose thyself in me,
Relive
in my renewal, and become
The
light of other lives, a quenchless torch
Passed
on from hand to hand, till men are dust
And
the last garland withers from my shrine.
(Scribner’s Magazine 49, Mar 1911)
Pomegranate
Seed.
Characters:
Demeter
Persephone
Hecate
Hermes
In
the vale of Elusis
Demeter
Hail,
goddess, from the midmost caverned vale
Of
Samothracia, where with darksome rites
Unnameable, and sacrificial lambs,
Pale
priests salute thy triple-headed form,
Borne
hither by swift Hermes o’er the sea:
Hail,HECATE, what word soe’er thou bring
To me, undaughtered, of my vanished child.
Hecate
Word
have I, but no Samothracian wild
Last
saw me, and mine aged footsteps pine
For
the bleak vale, my dusky-pillared house,
And
the cold murmur of incessant rites
Forever
falling down mine altar-steps
Into
black pools of fear … for I am come
Even
now from that blue-cinctured westward isle,
Trinacria,
where, till thou withheldst thy face,
Yearly
three harvests yellowed to the sun,
And
vines deep-laden yoked the heavier boughs—
Trinacria, that last saw Persephone.
Demeter
Now,
triune goddess, may the black ewe-lambs
Pour
a red river down thine altar-steps,
Fruit,
loaves and honey, at the cross-roads laid,
With
each young moon by pious hands renewed,
Appease
thee, and the Thracian vale resound
With
awful homage to thine oracle!
What
bring’st thou of Persephone, my child?
Hecate
Thy
daughter lives, yet never sees the sun.
Demeter
Blind
am I in her blindness. Tell no more.
Hecate
Blind
is she not, and yet beholds no light.
Demeter
Dark
as her doom is, are thy words to me.
Hecate
When
the wild chariot of the flying sea
Bore
me to Etna, ‘neath his silver slope
Herding
their father’s flocks three maids I found,
The
daughters of the god whose golden house
Rears in the east its cloudy peristyle.
“Helios,
our father,” to my quest they cried,
“Was
last to see Persephone on earth.”
Demeter
On earth? What nameless region holds her now?
Hecate
Even
as I put thy question to the three,
Etna
became as one who knows a god,
And
wondrously, across the waiting deep,
Wave
after wave the golden portent bore,
Till Helios rose before us.
Demeter
O,
I need
Thy
words as the parched valleys need my rain!
Hecate
May
the draught slake thee! Thus the god replied:
When
the first suns of March with verdant flame
Relume
the fig-trees in the crannied hills,
And
the pale myrtle scents the rain-washed air—
Ere
oleanders down the mountain stream
Pass
the wild torch of summer, and my kine
Breathe
of gold gorse and honey-laden sage;
Between
the first white flowering of the bay
And
the last almond’s fading from the hill,
Along
the fields of Enna came a maid
Who
seemed among her mates to move alone,
As
the full moon will mow the sky of stars,
And
whom, by that transcendence, I divined
Of
breed Olympian, and Demeter’s child.
Demeter
All-seeing
god! So walks she in my dreams.
Hecate
Persephone
(so spake the god of day)
Ran
here and there with footsteps that out-shone
The
daffodils she gathered, while her maids,
Like
shadows of herself by noon fore-shortened,
On
every side her laughing task prolonged;
When
suddenly the warm and trusted earth
Widened
black jaws beneath them, and therefrom
Rose
Aides, whom with averted head
Pale
mortals worship, as the poplar turns,
Whitening, her fearful foliage from the gale.
Like
thunder rolling up against the wind
He
dusked the sky with midnight ere he came,
Whirling
his cloak of subterraneous cloud
In
awful coils about the fated maid,
Till
nothing marked the place where she had stood
But
her dropped flowers—a garland on a grave.
Demeter
Where
is that grave? There will I lay me down,
And
know no more the change of night to day.
Hecate
Such
is the cry that mortal mothers make;
But
the sun rises, and their task goes on.
Demeter
Yet
happier they, that make an end at last.
Hecate
Behold,
along the Eleusinian vale
A
god approaches, by his feathered tread
Arcadian Hermes. Wait upon his word.
Demeter
I
am a god. What do the gods avail?
Hecate
Oft
have I heard that cry—but not the answer.
Hermes
Demeter,
from Olympus am I come,
By
laurelled Tempe and Thessalian ways,
Charged with grave words of aegis-bearing Zeus.
Demeter
(as if she has not heard him)
If
there be any grief I have not borne,
Go,
bring it here, and I will give it suck …
Hermes
Thou
art a god, and speakest mortal words?
Demeter
Even
the gods grow greater when they love.
Hermes
It
is the Life-giver who speaks by me.
Demeter
I
want no words but those my child shall speak.
Hermes
His
words are winged seeds that carry hope
To root and ripen in long-barren hearts.
Demeter
Deeds,
and not words, alone can quicken me.
Hermes
His
words are fruitfuller than deeds of men.
Why
hast thou left Olympus, and thy kind?
Demeter
Because
my kind are they that walk the earth
For
numbered days, and lay them down in graves.
My
sisters are the miserable women
Who
seek their children up and down the world,
Who
feel a babe’s hand at the faded breast,
And
live upon the words of lips gone dumb.
Sorrow
no footing on Olympus finds,
And
the gods are gods because their hearts forget.
Hermes
Why
then, since thou hast cast thy lot with those
Who
painfully endure vain days on earth,
Hast
thou, harsh arbitress of fruit and flower,
Cut
off the natural increase of the fields?
The
baffled herds, tongues lolling, eyes agape,
Range
wretchedly from sullen spring to spring,
A
million sun-blades lacerate the ground,
And
the shrunk fruits untimely drop, like tears
That
Earth at her own desolation sheds.
These
are the words Zeus bids me bring to thee.
Demeter
To
whom reply: No pasture longs for rain
As
for Persephone I thirst and hunger.
Give
me my child, and all the earth shall laugh
Like
Rhodian rose-fields in the eye of June.
Hermes
What
if such might were mine? What if, indeed,
The
exorable god, thy pledge confirmed,
Should
yield thee back the daughter of thy tears?
Demeter
Such
might is thine?
Beyond
Cithaeron, see
The footsteps of the rain upon the hills.
Hermes
Tell
me whence thy daughter must be led.
Hecate
So
much at least it shall be mine to do.
If
ever urgency hath plumed thy heels,
By
Psyttaleia and the outer isles
Westward
still winging thine ethereal way,
Beyond
the moon-swayed reaches of the deep,
And
that unvestiged midnight
that confines
The
verge of being, succourable god,
Haste
to the river by whose sunless brim
Dark
Aides leads forth his languid flocks.
There
shalt thou find Persephone enthroned.
Beside
the ruler of the dead she sits,
And
shares, unwilling, his long sovereignty.
Thence
lead her to Demeter and these groves.
Demeter
Round
thy returning feet the earth shall laugh
As
I, when of my body she was born!
Hecate
Lo,
thy last word is as a tardy shaft
Lost in his silver furrow. Ere thou speed
Its
fellow, we shall see his face again
And not alone. The gods are justified.
Demeter
Ah,
how impetuous are the wings of joy!
Swift
comes she, as impatient to be gone!
Swifter
than yonder rain moves down the pass
I
see the wonder run along the deep.
The
light draws nearer…. Speak to me, my child!
Hecate
I
feel the first slow rain-drop on my hand …
She
fades. Persephone comes, led by Hermes.
Persephone
How
sweet the hawthorn smells along the hedge …
And,
mother, mother, sweeter are these tears.
Demeter
Pale
art thou, daughter, and upon thy brow
Sits an estranging darkness like a crown.
Look
up, look up! Drink in the light’s new wine.
Feelest
thou not beneath thine alien feet
Earth’s old endearment, O Persephone?
Persephone
Dear
is the earth’s warm pressure under foot,
And
dear, my mother, is thy hand in mine.
As
one who, prisoned in some Asian wild,
After
long days of cheated wandering
Climbing
a sudden cliff, at last beholds
The
boundless reassurance of the sea,
And
on it one small sail that sets for home,
So
look I on the daylight, and thine eyes.
Demeter
Thy
voice is paler than the lips it leaves.
Thou
wilt not stay with me! I know my doom.
Persephone
Ah,
the sweet rain! The clouds compassionate!
Hide
me, O mother, hide me from the day!
Demeter
What
are these words? It is my love thou fearest.
Persephone
I
fear the light. I fear the sound of life
That
thunders in mine unaccustomed ears.
Demeter
Here
is no sound but the soft-falling rain.
Persephone
Dost
thou not hear the noise of birth and being,
The
roar of sap in boughs impregnated,
And
all the deafening rumour of the grass?
Demeter
Love hear I, at his endless task of life.
Persephone
The
awful immortality of life!
The
white path winding deathlessly to death!
Why
didst thou call the rain from out her caves
To draw a dying earth back to the day?
Why
fatten flocks for our dark feast, who sit
Beside
the gate, and know where the path ends?
O
pitiless gods—that I am one of you!
Demeter
They
are not pitiless, since thou art here.
Persephone
Who
am I, that they give me, or withhold?
Think’st
thou I am that same Persephone
They
took from thee?
Demeter
Within
thine eyes I see
Some
dreadful thing—
Persephone
At
first I deemed it so.
Demeter
Loving
thy doom, more dark thou mak’st it seem.
Persephone
Love? What is love? This long time I’ve unlearned
Those old unquiet words. There where we sit,
By
the sad river of the end, still are
The
poplars, still the shaken hearts of men,
Or
if they stir, it is as when in sleep
Dogs
sob upon a phantom quarry’s trail.
And
ever through their listlessness there runs
The
lust of some old anguish; never yet
Hath
any asked for happiness: that gift
They
fear too much! But they would sweat and strive,
And
clear a field, or kill a man, or even
Wait
on some long slow vengeance all their days.
Demeter
Since
I have sat upon the stone of sorrow,
Think’st
thou I know not how the dead may feel?
But
thou, look up; for thou shalt learn from me,
Under
the sweet day, in the paths of men,
All
the dear human offices that make
Their brief hour longer than the years of death.
Thou
shalt behold me wake the sleeping seed,
And
wing the flails upon the threshing-floor,
Among
young men and maidens; or at dawn,
Under
the low thatch, in the winnowing-creel,
Lay
the new infant, seedling of some warm
Noon dalliance in the golden granary,
Who
shall in turn rise, walk, and drive the plough,
And
in the mortal furrow leave his seed.
Persephone
Execrable
offices are theirs and thine!
Mine
only nurslings are the waxen-pale
Dead
babes, so small that they are hard to tell
From
the little images their mothers lay
Beside them, that they may not sleep alone.
Demeter
Yet
other nurslings to those mothers come,
And
live and love—
Persephone
Thou
hast not seen them meet,
Ghosts
of dead babes and ghosts of tired men,
Or
thou wouldst veil thy face, and curse the sun!
Demeter
Thou
wilt forget the things that thou hast seen.
Persephone
More
dreadful are the things thou hast to show.
Demeter
Art
thou so certain? Hard is it for men
To
know a god, and it has come to me
That
we, we also, may be blind to men.
Persephone
O
mother, thou hast spoken! But for me,
I, that have eaten of the seed of death,
And
with my dead die daily, am become
Of
their undying kindred, and no more
Can
sit within the doorway of the gods
And
laughing spin new souls along the years.
Demeter
Daughter,
speak low. Since I have walked with men
Olympus is a little hill, no more.
Stay
with me on the dear and ample earth.
Persephone
The
kingdom of the dead is wider still,
And
there I heal the wounds that thou hast made.
Demeter
And
yet I send thee beautiful ghosts and griefs!
Dispeopling
earth, I leave thee none to rule.
Persephone
O
that, mine office ended, I might end!
Demeter
Stand
off from me. Thou knowest more than I,
Who
am but the servant of some lonely will.
Persephone
Perchance the same. But me it calls from hence.
Demeter
On
earth, on earth, thou wouldst have wounds to heal!
Persephone
Free
me. I hear the voices of my dead.
She
goes.
Demeter
( after a long silence)
I
hear the secret whisper of the wheat.
(Scribner’s Magazine 51, Mar 1912)
The
Hymn of the Lusitania.
In
an article on “Peace Insurance by Preparedness Against
War,” appearing in the Metropolitan Magazine for August, Theodore Roosevelt
wrote: “Mrs. Wharton has sent me the following German poem on the sinking of
the Lusitania, with her translation”:
The
swift sea sucks her death-shriek under
As the great ship reels and leaps asunder.
Crammed taffrail-high with her murderous freight.
Like
a straw on the tide she whirls to her fate.
A
warship she, though she lacked its coat,
And
lustful for lives as none afloat,
A
warship, and one of the foe’s best workers.
Not
penned with her rusting harbor-shirkers.
Now
the Flanders guns lack their daily bread,
And
shipper and buyer are sick with dread.
For
neutral as Uncle Sam may be
Your
surest neutral’s the deep green sea.
Just
one ship sunk, with lives and shell,
And
thousands of German gray-coats well!
And
for each of her gray-coats, German hate
Would have sunk ten ships with all their freight.
Yea,
ten such ships are a paltry fine
For one good life in our fighting line.
Let
England ponder the crimson text:
TORPEDO,
STRIKE! AND HURRAH FOR THE NEXT!
(New York Herald, 7 May 1915)
The
Great Blue Tent.
Special Cable to The
New York Times. Paris, Aug. 24.—Edith Wharton has written the following poem for The New York
Times:
Come
unto me, said the Flag,
Ye
weary and sore opprest;
For
I am no shot-riddled rag,
But
a great blue tent of rest.
Ye
heavy laden, come
On
the aching feet of dread,
From
ravaged town, from murdered home,
From your tortured and your dead.
All
they that beat at my crimson bars
Shall enter without demur.
Though
the round earth rock with the
wind of wars,
Not
one of my folds shall stir.
See,
here is warmth and sleep,
And
a table largely spread.
I
give garments to them that weep,
And
for gravestones I give bread.
But
what, through my inmost fold,
Is
this cry on the winds of war?
Are
you grown so old, are you grown so
cold,
O
Flag that was once our star?
Where
did you learn that bread is life,
And
where that fire is warm—
You,
that took the van of a world-wide
strife,
As
an eagle takes the storm?
Where
did you learn that men are bred
Where
hucksters bargain and gorge;
And
where that down makes a softer bed
Than the snows of Valley Forge?
Come
up, come up to the stormy sky,
Where
our fierce folds rattle and hum,
For
Lexington taught us how to fly,
And
we dance to Concord’s drum.
O
flags of freedom, said the Flag,
Brothers
of wind and sky;
I
too was once a tattered rag,
And
I wake and shake at your cry.
I
tug and tug at the anchoring place,
Where
my drowsy folds are caught;
I
strain to be off on the old fierce chase
Of
the foe we have always fought.
O
People I made, said the Flag,
And
welded from sea to sea,
I
am still the shot-riddled rag,
That
shrieks to be free, to be free.
Oh,
cut my silken ties
From
the roof of the palace of peace;
Give
back my stars to the skies,
My
stripes to the storm-striped seas!
Or
else, if you bid me yield,
Then
down with my crimson bars,
And
o’er all my azure field
Sow
poppies instead of stars.
(New York Times, 25 Aug. 1915)
Battle
Sleep.
Somewhere,
O sun, some corner there must be
Thou
visitest, where down the strand
Quietly,
still, the waves go out to sea
From the green fringes of a pastoral land.
Deep
in the orchard-bloom the roof-trees stand,
The
brown sheep graze along the bay,
And
through the apple-boughs above the sand
The
bees’ hum sounds no fainter than the spray.
There
through uncounted hours declines the day
To
the low arch of twilight’s close,
And,
just as night about the moon grows gray,
One
sail leans westward to the fading rose.
Giver
of dreams, O thou with scatheless wing
Forever
moving through the fiery hail,
To
flame-seared lids the cooling vision bring,
And
let some soul go seaward with that sail!
(Century Magazine 90, Sept. 1915)
On
Active Service.
He
is dead that was alive.
How
shall friendship understand?
Lavish
heart and tireless hand
Bidden
not to give or strive,
Eager
brain and questing eye
Like
a broken lens laid by.
He,
with so much left to do,
Such
a gallant race to run,
What
concern had he with you,
Silent Keeper of things done?
Tell
us not that, wise and young,
Elsewhere
he lives out his plan.
Our
speech was sweetest to his tongue,
And
his great gift was to be man.
Long
and long shall we remember,
In
our breasts his grave be made.
It
shall never be December
Where
so warm a heart is laid,
But
in our saddest selves a sweet voice sing,
Recalling
him, and Spring.
(Scribner’s Magazine 64, Nov 1918)
You
and You.
To the American Private in the Great
War
Every
one of you won the war—
You
and you and you—
Each
one knowing what it was for,
And
what was his job to do.
Every
one of you won the war,
Obedient,
unwearied, unknown,
Dung
in the trenches, drift on the shore,
Dust
to the world’s end blown;
Every
one of you, steady and true,
You
and you and you—
Down
in the pit or up in the blue,
Whether
you crawled or sailed or flew,
Whether
your closest comrade knew
Or
you bore the brunt alone—
All
of you, all of you, name after name,
Jones
and Robinson, Smith and Brown,
You
from the piping prairie town,
You
from the Fundy fogs that came,
You
from the city’s roaring blocks,
You
from the bleak New England rocks
With
the shingled roof in the apple boughs,
You
from the brown adobe house—
You
from the Rockies, you from the Coast,
You
from the burning frontier-post
And
you from the Klondyke’s frozen flanks,
You
from the cedar-swamps, you from the pine,
You
from the cotton and you from the vine,
You
from the rice and the sugar-brakes,
You
from the Rivers and you from the Lakes,
You
from the Creeks and you from the Licks
And
you from the brown bayou—
You
and you and you—
You
from the pulpit, you from the mine,
You
from the factories, you from the banks,
Closer
and closer, ranks on ranks,
Airplanes
and cannon, and rifles and tanks,
Smith
and Robinson, Brown and Jones,
Ruddy
faces or bleaching bones,
After
the turmoil and blood and pain
Swinging
home to the folks again
Or
sleeping along in the fine French rain—
Every
one of you won the war.
Every
one of you won the war—
You
and you and you—
Pressing
and pouring forth, more and more,
Toiling
and straining from shore to shore
To
reach the flaming edge of the dark
Where
man in his millions went up like a spark,
You,
in your thousands and millions coming,
All
the sea ploughed with you, all the air humming,
All
the land loud with you,
All
our hearts proud with you,
All
our souls bowed with the awe of your coming!
Where’s
the Arch high enough,
Lads,
to receive you,
Where’s
the eye dry enough,
Dears,
to perceive you,
When
at last and at last in your glory you come,
Tramping
home?
Every one of you won the war,
You
and you and you—
You
that carry an unscathed head,
You
that halt with a broken tread,
And
oh, most of all, you Dead, you Dead!
Lift
up the Gates for these that are last,
That are last in the great Procession.
Let
the living pour in, take possession,
Flood
back to the city, the ranch, the farm,
The
church and the college and mill,
Back
to the office, the store, the exchange,
Back
to the wife with the babe on her arm,
Back
to the mother that waits on the sill,
And
the supper that’s hot on the range.
And
now, when the last of them all are by,
Be
the Gates lifted up on high
To
let those Others in,
Those
Others, their brothers, that softly tread,
That
come so thick, yet take no ground,
That are so many, yet make no sound,
Our
Dead, our Dead, our Dead!
O
silent and secretly-moving throng,
In
your fifty thousand strong,
Coming
at dusk when the wreaths have dropt,
And
streets are empty, and music stopt,
Silently
coming to hearts that wait
Dumb
in the door and dumb at the gate,
And
hear your step and fly to your call—
Every
one of you won the war,
But
you, you Dead, most of all!
November,
1918.
(Scribner’s Magazine 65, Feb 1919)
With
the Tide.
Somewhere
I read, in an old book whose name
Is
gone from me, I read that when the days
Of
a man are counted, and his business done,
There
comes up the shore at evening, with the tide,
To
the place where he sits, a boat—
And
in the boat, from the place where he sits, he sees,
Dim
in the dusk, dim and yet so familiar,
The
faces of his friends long dead; and knows
They
come for him, brought in upon the tide,
To
take him where men go at set of day.
Then
rising, with his hands in theirs, he goes
Between
them his last steps, that are the first
Of
the new life—and with the ebb they pass,
Their shaken sail grown small upon the moon.
Often
I thought of this, and pictured me
How
many a man who lives with throngs about him,
Yet
straining through the twilight for that boat
Shall
scarce make out one figure in the stern,
And
that so faint its features shall perplex him
With doubtful memories—and his heart hang back.
But
others, rising as they see the sail
Increase
upon the sunset, hasten down,
Hands
out and eyes elated; for they see
Head
over head, crowding from bow to stern,
Repeopling
their long loneliness with smiles,
The
faces of their friends; and such go forth
Content upon the ebb tide, with safe hearts.
But
never
To
worker summoned when his day was done
Did
mounting tide bring in such freight of friends
As
stole to you up the white wintry shingle
That
night while they that watched you thought you slept.
Softly
they came, and beached the boat, and gathered
In
the still cove under the icy stars,
Your last-born, and the dear loves of your heart,
And
all men that have loved right more than ease,
And
honor above honors; all who gave
Free-handed
of their best for other men,
And
thought their giving taking: they who knew
Man’s
natural state is effort, up and up—
All
these were there, so great a company
Perchance
you marveled, wondering what great ship
Had
brought that throng unnumbered to the cove
Where
the boys used to beach their light canoe
After
old happy picnics—
But
these, your friends and children, to whose hands
Committed,
in the silent night you rose
And
took your last faint steps—
These
led you down, O great American,
Down
to the winter night and the white beach,
And
there you saw that the huge hull that waited
Was
not as are the boats of the other dead,
Frail
craft for a brief passage; no, for this
Was
first of a long line of towering transports,
Storm-worn
and ocean-weary every one,
The
ships you launched, the ships you manned, the ships
That
now, returning from their sacred quest
With
the thrice-sacred burden of their dead,
Lay
waiting there to take you forth with them,
Out with the ebb tide, on some farther quest.
Hyeres, January 7th, 1919.
(Saturday Evening Post 191, 29 Mar 1919)
Belgium.
La Belgique ne regrette rien
Not
with her ruined silver spires,
Not
with her cities shamed and rent,
Perish
the imperishable fires
That shape the homestead from the tent.
Wherever
men are staunch and free,
There
shall she keep her fearless state,
And
homeless, to great nations be
The home of all that makes them great.
Terminus.
Wonderful
were the long secret nights you gave me, my Lover,
Palm
to palm breast to breast in the gloom. The faint red lamp,
Flushing with magical shadows the common-place room
of the inn
With
its dull impersonal furniture, kindled a mystic flame
In
the heart of the swinging mirror, the glass that has seen
Faces
innumerous & vague of the endless travelling automata,
Whirled
down the ways of the world like dust-eddies swept through a street,
Faces
indifferent or weary, frowns of impatience or pain,
Smiles
(if such there were ever) like your smile ad mine when they met
Here,
in this self-same glass, while you helped me to loosen my dress,
And
the shadow-mouths melted to one, like sea-birds that meet in a wave–
Such
smiles, yes, such smiles the mirror perhaps has
reflected;
And
the low wide bed, as rutted and worn as a high-road,
The
bed with its soot-sodden chintz, the grime of its brasses,
That
has borne the weight of fagged bodies, dust-stained, averted in sleep,
The
hurried, the restless, the aimless–perchance it has also thrilled
With
the pressure of bodies ecstatic, bodies like ours,
Seeking
each other’s souls in the depths of unfathomed caresses,
And
through the long windings of passion emerging again to the stars …
Yes,
all this through the room, the passive & featureless room,
Must
have flowed with the rise & fall of the human unceasing current;
And
lying there hushed in your arms, as the waves of rapture receded,
And
far down the margin of being we heard the low beat of the soul,
I
was glad as I thought of those others, the nameless, the many,
Who
perhaps thus had lain and loved for an hour on the brink of the world,
Secret
and fast in the heart of the whirlwind of travel,
The
shaking and shrieking of trains, the night-long shudder of traffic,
Thus,
like us they have lain & felt, breast to breast in the dark,
The
fiery rain of possession descend on their limbs while outside
The
black rain of midnight
pelted the roof of the station;
And
thus some woman like me, waking alone before dawn,
While
her lover slept, as I woke & heard the calm stir of your breathing,
Some
woman has heard as I heard the farewell shriek of the trains
Crying
good-bye to the city & staggering out into darkness,
And
shaken at heart has thought: “So must we forth in the darkness,
Sped
down the fixed rail of habit by the hand of implacable fate–
So
shall we issue to life, & the rain, & the dull dark dawning;
You
to the wide flare of cities, with windy garlands and shouting,
Carrying
to populous places the freight of holiday throngs;
I,
by waste lands, & stretches of low-skied marsh
To
a harbourless wind-bitten shore, where a dull town moulders & shrinks,
And
its roofs fall in, & the sluggish feet of the hours
Are
printed in grass in its streets; & between the featureless houses
Languid
the town-folk glide to stare at the entering train,
The
train from which no one descends; till one pale evening of winter,
When
it halts on the edge of the town, see, the houses have turned into
grave-stones,
The
streets are the grassy paths between the low roofs of the dead;
And
as the train glides in ghosts stand by the doors of the carriages;
And
scarcely the difference is felt–yea, such is the life
I return to …”
Thus
may another have thought; thus, as I turned may have turned
To the sleeping lips at her side, to drink, as I drank there,
oblivion ….
.
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